FIVE ARTICLES ON FAST FASHION AND SOCIAL MEDIA'S IMPACT ON SELF-PERCEPTION
The Impact of Fast Fashion, and How Social Media Changes Our Perception of Self
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THE IMPACT OF FAST FASHION
THE FACES OF FASHION
By William Laurente, Xavier Gonzalez, and Winston Pienaar
Throughout the years of the creation of fashion starting from before the time of chivalry to our modern day age. Evolution from starting off with ripped rags to puffer jackets and Air Force 1’s. That begs the question though. Over the years has fashion changed to become a personality trait to our society or has it become a construct of creativity itself to express their colors.
As history has gone on, we start to see a pattern with how some people acted and how they were dressed. It’s been constantly changing and I can guarantee that at one point in your life you had prejudice based on what someone was wearing. In most cases, fashion tends to express a bit of a person's personality through what they are wearing as we normally represent ourselves through our fashion. It’s been seen throughout that people with some personality traits tend to follow a sort of fashion different from other fashions with traits.
In the 50’s and 60’s people wore bell bottoms, jumpsuits, and unbuttoned shirts. These were often influenced by music such as Disco and Roller Skating. In the 80’s and 90’s celebrities like Naomi Campbell and Princess Diana influenced fashion trends. In the early 2000’s
Nowadays we can see people start dressing up with their own expression on who they are or who they want to be.A famous rapper known as Kid Cudi walked around in a wedding dress to normalize this as menswear because there is a campaign for that. Lady Gaga expressed herself with creative thinking of outfits during her performances as well, wearing crazy hair with an abstract outfit which is also revealing as well.
In a study, it was found that there are relationships between clothing practices, personality traits, and body image among Israeli women. It showed the connections between women who tended to have more openness to experience, those who seek fashion, and those who love individuality. In these studies they have been shown to represent how fashion can be pinpointed onto some sort of personality.
HOW YOU CAN HELP REDUCE THE DEVASTATING IMPACT OF FAST FASHION
by: Emily Magallon
When quarantine happened there were trends that popped up everywhere. One of those trends is buying from Shein, a Chinese Fast Fashion company that provides cute clothing at cheap prices. On Tik tok and Instagram, influencers have been sponsoring their clothing, spreading the need to want to buy there. Shopping is a normal thing but during quarantine it became popular to do unhauls and hauls. Massive piles of clothing just thrown away or shopping excessively. Many people could follow trends just by adding things to cart and buying. It was easy and affordable but what do some people have to say about it?
Scrolling through Tik Tok, I found many controversial topics and recently I've been seeing multiple videos about fast fashion. Hate is the thing that stood out to me. People hating on others for shopping at Shein, people trying to persuade others to change. I watched, getting worried that I wasn’t doing enough and thinking how others might feel guilty too. Of course, fast fashion isn’t good for the environment but for middle class people and those in poverty, society doesn’t really give them many options. Do as much as you can do even if it’s small.
Buying and Limiting
Buying from sustainable brands or ethical brands can be hard. Either you don’t have enough money or you don’t know where to look. You can start by thrifting. Thrifting isn’t for everybody and that’s okay, you shouldn’t feel bad but just stay conscious on how much you’re buying. When you buy you should buy the things you’re in need or something that’s going to last long. This could also help with money problems.
Here are some sustainable brands:
Sustainyourstyle.org, site to find multiple sustainable brands
KOTN, a brand with prices ranging from $11 to $200, A lot of clothing around 30 dollars
Quince, prices ranging from $30 to $500, Clothes around 30 to 40, Jewelry around 100 to 500 dollars.
These are the only ones I thought could be affordable for a shop-once type of situation. Many sustainable brands have their clothing costing around 40 to 200 dollars.
Thrifting and Trends
Thredup.com is an online thrift store where you can specifically find something by using their filter. Only 16-18% shop from thrift stores according to the United States Census and it’s mostly because it’s trendy. This trend is one of the good ones, it feels good to say you got something “vintage” but following trends isn’t always a good thing. Trends change every year or month and clothing that you might’ve worn right now can end up with you never wearing it again. If thrifting is not for you that’s alright, just remember that it’s important to be educated and aware than not knowing. Remember that the growing problem is fast fashion. Thrifting helps reduce the waste that fast fashion contributes. Always be conscious, limit your buying and try to buy something that will last you longer.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND BODY IMAGE
BYAMAIYA NAVA-GANIGAN, SARAH ANDERSON, DIANA ARIZMENDI, DANIEL PEREZ
Has social media ever influenced the way you see yourself? If you're a teenager the answer is probably yes. Social media can make you want to live up to very unrealistic body expectations. Many influencers lie about getting plastic surgery or photoshopping their body. They fool you making you think that's what they really look like but it's not. This subject can be very sensitive for many teens but it is something that needs to be talked about.
Issues with body image affect teenagers and young adults across the globe. The Department of Washington EDU states,” At age thirteen, 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to about 78% by the times girls reach seventeen.”
Park Nicollet Melrose Center states,” We wanted to get a closer insight into this topic and how it affects teensagers here at East Tech. We surveyed 52 students and asked them a simple yes or no question. “Have you ever felt insecure about your body after being on social media? We estimated that more females would answer yes to the question. This is due to the immense pressure that is put on them to have a “perfect body”. About 48% of girls or 25 out of 52 girls said that they had felt insecure about their body after being on social media. An anonymous student stated,” We are fed these pictures that are, most of the time, lies. They create these standards that are too high or too unrealistic to achieve.”
Males and females experience different struggles on a daily basis and we wondered if they would have at least shared this struggle. Surprisingly, they had very different reactions to our question. The Mental Health Foundation stated that, “46% of girls reported that their body image causes them to worry ‘often’ or ‘always’ compared to 25% of boys.” The statistics prove time and time again that it's more common that females struggle with more body issues than males. It has also proved itself here at ECTA. Around 12% or 6 out of 52 of the males surveyed stated that they did feel insecure about their bodies after being on social media. About 14 out of 20 of the boys surveyed answered no to our question. This amount is significantly larger than the 2 out of 27 girls who answered no.
In conclusion, social media influences the way we see ourselves and how we treat bodies. Those usually who said yes to our question were females rather than males. We believe that the majority of female students said yes because women and girls alike, feel like they must obtain a “perfect” body (by society’s standards). Social media markets these pictures to the one of the most impressionable individuals, teenage girls. On the other hand, most of the male students interviewed answered no. When asked why, they all either said that they didn’t care or they weren’t bothered by what they saw on social media. Is this because they aren’t targeted as much as females? Hopefully one day in the future we won’t have a “perfect” body type that we strive to have and we'll only have to live up to our own standards.
THROUGH THE EYES OF SOCIAL MEDIA BY MADISON MCGREGOR
Social media gives teenagers the chance to share and express. Whether it be through our hobbies, music taste, style, interest or anything else, we are able to share what makes us unique. Social media is also a way for teenagers to escape. When they are stressed out and want to relax, they might watch a few videos before doing more schoolwork. Overall, social media offers a chance to express and a way to escape. However, social media proves to also have negative impacts on a teenagers self esteem and mental health.
Social Media and Self Esteem
Many teens have a fear of rejection and a thirst for validation. Social media offers both rejection and validation which can have a huge impact on self esteem. For example, when a teenager posts a photo of themselves on Instagram, they are anticipating likes, shares, followers, and compliments. Sometimes, however, the wrong people can end up on their page and post comments that will make them feel bad about themselves. Negative comments about one's appearance can cause insecurities that didn’t even exist before. Teenagers may also feel insecure because they don’t meet certain beauty standards that social media creates. They start to feel they are ugly if they don’t have the same features that society deems as perfect.
“For example, I see a pretty girl and I'm jealous of her because she is like- she’s like up to society's standards and I’m not. - And honestly it’s just very draining.” Stated by an anonymous student.
Another way they may feel insecure is by comparing themselves to others. They find people on social media and wish they looked like them and had their features. Dosomething.org states, “Over 70% of girls age 15 to 17 avoid normal daily activities, such as attending school, when they feel bad about their looks.” Scrolling through social media can feel exhausting when you constantly think every person you come across looks better than you. For these reasons, low self esteem is heavily caused by social media.
Social Media and Mental Health
While social media can make us feel happy or relaxed, it can also make us feel angry, sad, disgusted, jealous, envious, remorse, and more. For example, when scrolling through social media we often come across posts that we find upsetting. Whether it's upsetting news about politics, the state of the world, or a personal matter, social media can alter our mood for the worse. Due to a lack of censorship on hateful and inappropriate content, social media can expose us to harmful words and images we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Social media recognizes hate as a very common issue yet fails to prevent it. Because of this, many people are shamed for their race, beliefs, sexuality, and more.
“Sometimes I’ll scroll through social media and I’ll see something upsetting, maybe regarding politics, and it’ll make me angry.” Stated by Mr. Schaff.
Jealousy can have a huge impact on a teenager's mental health. Teenagers will brag about their day or the time they hung out with their friends on social media and others scrolling to see these posts will feel bad because they didn’t do anything at all. Teenagers develop a fear of missing out and are hurt every time they aren't invited. They also often get jealous of how other people look. They compare themselves to others and see themselves as unfit to society's beauty standards. Social media can promote jealousy which can lead to depression and low self esteem.
“It affects me mentally and emotionally because sometimes I see people hanging out with their friends and it’s like I’m just home alone, sitting down, doing absolutely nothing. And it just makes me envy them because I wanna have friends to go out with.” Stated by an anonymous student.
Another thing that can have a negative effect on a teenagers mental health is addiction to social media. Sometimes you can be scrolling for so long and not even remember when you opened the app. Social media can easily drag you in and make it hard to put down. This may cause some people to feel bad about their decisions and put themselves down for not doing anything productive. Addiction to social media is very common among children, teens, and adults alike.
“I can easily put down twitter and facebook but I think I can spend up to 3 hours a night scrolling through tiktok.” Stated by Mr. Shaff.
Overall, social media does have some positive qualities. However it can easily negatively impact your self esteem and mental health. Whether it be from sudden mood changes, bullying, jealousy, envy, guilt, or anything else, social media can lower your self esteem and bring down your mental health. Hate is too common on social media and something must be done about it. No more people should be a victim of hate or cyber bullying. We shouldn’t be afraid to express ourselves and we shouldn’t allow others to put us down. I hope we can all eventually accept ourselves no matter what anyone else chooses to say or think.
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Gautama Buddha